


The Man of Her Dreams

by jdale



Category: NCIS, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Coffee, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreams, F/M, Jordan Hampton is Elizabeth Weir, Kissing, Post-Descension Amnesia, Watching Someone Sleep, Wraith on earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21791746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdale/pseuds/jdale
Summary: Jordan Hampton gets far more than she bargained for when Ducky asks for her help investigating the mysterious death of a Marine lieutenant.
Relationships: John Sheppard/Elizabeth Weir, Jordan Hampton & Ducky Mallard, Rodney McKay & Elizabeth Weir
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	The Man of Her Dreams

“Jordan!” Ducky greeted his friend. “How nice of you to join me on such short notice.”

Jordan smiled. “Well, when you offer me a home-cooked meal, how could I refuse?”

“Here, let me take your coat,” Ducky said.

Once Ducky had put the coat away, he went into the kitchen and brought out two steaming plates of beef stew and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.

“Trying to get me drunk?” Jordan teased.

“Certainly not,” Ducky replied in a mock-offended tone.

Jordan lifted a spoonful of the stew to her lips and immediately closed her eyes as it entered her mouth.

“Oh, this is delicious,” she told Ducky.

“I’m glad you enjoy,” Ducky responded.

“So, you said on the phone you had something you wanted my opinion on?” Jordan asked.

Ducky nodded. “It concerns our mutual line of work, so perhaps it would be better left until after dinner?”

Jordan chuckled. “Perhaps it would.”

“So, how has your life been since we last saw each other?” Ducky inquired.

“About as well as can be expected,” Jordan answered. “I’ve been having a series of interconnected dreams the past several weeks, about a man who lives in a crystal city on the ocean.”

Ducky hummed thoughtfully. “What does he do there?”

Jordan sighed. “He’s a soldier, defending the city against…unspeakable horrors that lie beyond the ocean. He’s kind, compassionate, but…he’s very hard on himself. Whenever a member of his unit is killed in action, he takes it as a personal failure, like it’s somehow his fault the man died, even when there was nothing he could have done to prevent it.”

Ducky frowned. “Does he have friends to help him bear the burden?”

Jordan nodded. “Yes, but…I never see his friends as clearly as I see the man himself. There are four that I see most often. One’s a brilliant scientist, one’s a fierce warrior, one’s a wise guide.”

“And the fourth?” Ducky asked.

Jordan smiled. “A Scottish medical doctor…not unlike what I imagine you must have been like in your younger years.”

“They sound like quite the group,” Ducky remarked. “And where do you fit in to all this?”

“I don’t think I do,” Jordan replied. “I’m not really ‘experiencing’ what’s happening in the dreams. It’s more like I’m watching a movie.”

Ducky nodded thoughtfully, and then the conversation shifted to another topic. When their meal was finished and the dishes had been put away, Ducky led Jordan to the drawing room.

“I had the body of a Marine lieutenant come across my table today in a most unusual state,” Ducky began. “The lieutenant had been seen alive less than an hour before his body was discovered, but when the body was found, it had been almost completely desiccated.”

Jordan’s brow furrowed. “Desiccated?”

“Yes,” Ducky confirmed. “It was as if all the water had been somehow extracted from his cells.”

“Was that how he died?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Ducky admitted. “The man had what initially looked like a stab wound on his chest, but there was stippling around the edges, and the placement doesn’t make sense, either. You see, there were fingernail marks, as if the assailant had placed his hand on the victim’s chest to hold him down during the attack, and based on the locations of the nail marks, the location of the chest wound is right where the assailant’s palm would have been resting against the victim’s chest.”

“Oh my god,” Jordan said, her voice barely above a whisper. She had paled considerably as Ducky was describing the wound pattern, and she was now almost completely white.

“What is it?” Ducky asked.

“The crystal city in my dreams,” Jordan replied. “The creatures the city’s inhabitants are fighting…you’ve described almost perfectly what they do to their victims.”

* * *

“We think we have a Wraith loose on Earth,” Carter informed the Atlantis team.

John and Woolsey exchanged concerned glances before returning their attention to the video screen.

“How did a Wraith get to Earth?” John asked.

“We don’t know,” Carter replied. “Our best guess is that one of the Wraith that invaded the SGC via the Midway station must have found his way to the surface.”

“That was months ago,” Woolsey said in shock. “How is this only coming to our attention now?”

“And where is this Wraith now?” John added.

“Washington, D.C.,” Carter answered to the second question.

“Unbelievable,” Woolsey muttered in frustration.

“NCIS is currently investigating the death of Marine Lieutenant Austin Stone,” Carter continued. Her image disappeared from the screen and was replaced by a picture of Lt. Stone’s body.

“Yep, that’s definitely a Wraith feeding,” John remarked on seeing the picture.

The picture was once more replaced by the video feed of Carter. “I want you and Doctor McKay to come back to Earth and assist NCIS in tracking down this Wraith.”

John’s brow furrowed. “We’re gonna read in NCIS on the existence of the Stargate Program?”

“When you think about it, with the number of Marines that are attached to the program, it’s probably long overdue,” Carter pointed out.

John cocked his head as he considered her statement. “Fair enough.”

* * *

Gibbs, Tony, McGee, Ziva, Ducky, Abby, and Vance were seated in MTAC. Carter, Rodney, and John stood at the front of the room.

“Lieutenant Stone was killed by a being known as a Wraith,” Carter explained to the NCIS contingent. As she said this, a picture of a Wraith appeared on the screen behind her.

Ziva looked at Carter skeptically. “Aliens.”

“How many of these things are we dealing with?” Tony asked.

“We’ve had the _Apollo_ scan the planet from orbit. They only detected the one Wraith lifesign,” Rodney replied.

“How accurately were you able to pinpoint this…Wraith’s…location?” McGee asked.

“Colonel Sheppard and I will be in radio contact with Doctor McKay aboard the _Apollo_ ,” Carter explained. “He’ll be able to track the Wraith’s movements in real time and guide us into visual range.”

“At which point we just pump it full of lead until it dies?” Tony asked.

Carter nodded. “Simple enough in theory; let’s just hope it goes as well in practice.”

* * *

Carter, John, Rodney, and Team Gibbs exited the elevator and made their way into the bullpen, where they found Abby and Ducky waiting for them.

“Success?” Abby asked.

Gibbs nodded silently.

“Colonel Carter, do you have a moment?” Ducky requested.

“Certainly, Doctor,” Carter agreed.

The two stepped off to the side of the group, and Ducky told her in hushed tones, “A friend of mine told me last night about a series of dreams she’s been having recently about people who live in a crystal city and fight creatures remarkably similar to how you’ve described these Wraith.”

Carter frowned.

“That’s not the strangest thing, though,” Ducky continued. “When I met Colonel Sheppard and Doctor McKay earlier this morning, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how my friend had described two of the characters in her dream.”

Carter’s frown deepened, and she waved John and Rodney over.

“What’s going on?” John asked.

“Doctor Mallard’s just informed me that a friend of his has been having dreams about Atlantis,” Carter explained.

McKay’s brow furrowed. “Dreams about Atlantis?”

“A few years ago, we had an incident where a civilian was seeing visions of General O’Neill’s life through an Ancient communications stone,” Carter recalled. “Could be something similar going on here. Doctor Mallard, we need to meet this friend of yours.”

* * *

Jordan had just gotten home and was preparing to settle down for a nap when the doorbell rang.

“I’ll be there in a second!” she called.

She opened the door to find a blonde woman slightly taller than herself, with two men standing slightly behind and on either side of her. The man on the right seemed vaguely familiar to her for some reason.

When Jordan’s eyes landed on the man on the left, she instantly recognized him as the soldier from her dreams of the crystal city. No sooner had this realization struck her than memories began to pour into her brain, memories of another life— _her_ life, she realized.

“John,” she breathed.

“Lizbeth,” he answered, his voice thick with emotion.

Elizabeth stepped out onto the porch and threw her arms around John, her heart feeling like it would burst any moment. He returned the embrace enthusiastically, tears welling up in his eyes as he thought how lucky he was to have her back.

“Lizbeth—” he began, but she cut him off with a kiss.

“I know,” she assured him.

“We’ll…we’ll just…wait in the car, okay?” Rodney told John.

Elizabeth laughed sheepishly. “I’m sorry. Where are my manners? Please, come in. All of you.”

Once everyone was inside, Elizabeth told them, “There should still be about half a pot of coffee in the kitchen if anyone wants some. You’ll probably have to pop it in the microwave to warm it back up to drinkable temperature.”

Rodney, true to form, immediately left for the kitchen, while John and Carter followed Elizabeth into the living room. Carter took a seat in one of the easy chairs, while John and Elizabeth, by unspoken agreement, curled up together on the sofa. When Rodney entered a moment later, he initially made for the other easy chair, but Elizabeth waved him over to join her and John on the sofa.

Carter chuckled softly. “I suppose I should be reading into the seating arrangements that you want to go back to Atlantis if that’s at all possible?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“How did you wind up…here?” Rodney asked, gesturing to the room in general.

Elizabeth sighed. “Short version: I ascended and then was sent back down to the mortal plane.”

Carter looked at her in surprise. “Really? And the Ancients put you back down on Earth with a false identity? In our past experiences with someone being sent back down, they were dumped on a sparsely-populated world with no memories at all.”

Elizabeth shrugged as best she could while still keeping her arms around John. “I’m not complaining.”

“Do you remember what you did to get kicked out?” Rodney asked.

Elizabeth shook her head. “The only…well, it’s not even really a memory from when I was ascended, it’s just this…profound sense of loneliness. Even just thinking about it, it’s the most awful feeling I’ve ever experienced, like everyone and everything I ever knew was just ripped away and left me completely alone in the universe.”

Sensing the sadness that had come over her, John snuggled Elizabeth closer and gently kissed her hair. “It’s alright, Lizbeth, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Elizabeth smiled up at him lovingly. “Thank you.”

“That’s what friends are for,” Rodney put in, placing a hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder.

“Friends,” Elizabeth repeated, still smiling. “You know, I think looking back now, that’s my biggest regret from my time in Atlantis is that I never truly let myself get close to anyone for fear that I would be accused of letting my emotions impair my judgment.”

“Well, assuming the IOA lets you come back to Atlantis, you’ll always be welcome to join us for team movie night,” Rodney told her.

“You always were,” John added.

“I know,” Elizabeth assured them, “and if I am able to come back, I’ll definitely be taking you up on that offer moving forward.”

“Anything in particular you’d like to see?” John asked. “If no one has it already, we can pick up a copy while we’re here on Earth.”

Elizabeth hummed thoughtfully. “How about _Moonraker_?”

Rodney leaned over to look at her in surprise. “ _Moonraker_? Really? I’d have pegged you more for a Pierce Brosnan girl.”

Elizabeth pulled a face. “ _GoldenEye_ wasn’t bad, but his tenure just went downhill from there.”

“Well, you have to at least admit Brosnan got the best gadgets,” Rodney argued.

“Of course that’s the part you would be most interested in,” John muttered.

“What about the submarine car from _The Spy Who Loved Me_?” Elizabeth countered.

“Alright, I’ll see your submarine car and raise you the remote-control Beamer from _Tomorrow Never Dies_ and the cloaked Aston Martin from _Die Another Day_!” Rodney shot back.

“Okay, I’ll give you _Tomorrow Never Dies_ ,” Elizabeth conceded, “but come on! After all the real-life cloaking devices we’ve seen since we became involved with the Stargate Program, the so-called ‘cloaked car’ in _Die Another Day_ is amateurish at best!”

“What is wrong with you two?” Carter interrupted, her expression aghast. “No love for Connery?”

“I never said that!” Rodney and Elizabeth protested simultaneously, both pointing an accusing finger in Carter’s direction.

John, for his part, just watched the banter, grinning like a loon.

“What?” Elizabeth asked, noticing his expression.

“Just…all of us, back together, arguing about James Bond like normal people,” John explained, the grin never leaving his face.

Rodney cast a significant look at Carter, holding up his coffee mug as he did so, and went back into the kitchen for a refill. Carter, taking the hint, decided she could use a cup as well and quietly followed him out.

“I missed you, Lizbeth,” John whispered, kissing her again.

With a contented sigh, Elizabeth closed her eyes and let herself melt into his embrace. “I don’t ever want to be away from you again.”

“You won’t be,” John assured her. “Whatever happens from here on out, we’re in this together, Lizbeth.”

Elizabeth opened her eyes to look at him, although John could tell it was a struggle for her to do so. “What if the IOA doesn’t let me come back?”

“Lorne has the time in grade to be eligible for promotion this year,” John replied. “I have no doubt he’d do a fine job as my successor if it came to that.”

“You would…leave Atlantis for me?” Elizabeth asked.

John nodded. “You were a large part of the reason I agreed to go in the first place.”

Elizabeth smiled, her eyes falling shut once more. “I love you, John,” she murmured sleepily.

John kissed her gently on the forehead. “I love you, too. Sleep tight, Lizbeth.”

John watched with a soft smile as Elizabeth’s body relaxed, her breathing slow and even. For the first time since that awful day he had been forced to leave her behind on the Replicator homeworld, John felt whole again.


End file.
